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How to Feel the Sap Rising (a love note from your online Abbess)

How to Feel the Sap Rising (a poem for summer) Walk as slowly as possible, all the while imagining yourself moving through pools of honey and dancing with snails, turtles, and caterpillars. Turn your body in a clockwise direction to inspire your dreams to flow upward. Imagine the trees are your own wise ancestors offering their emerald leaves to you as a sacred text. Lay yourself down across earth and stones.  Feel the vibration of dirt and moss, sparking a tiny (or tremendous) revolution in your heart with their own great longing. Close your eyes and forget this border of skin.  Imagine

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Wisdom Council: Guest Post from Dana Reynolds of Sacred Life Arts

I am so delighted to be starting a weekly series of guest posts from each of the Wisdom Council members, with their reflections on what being a monk in the world and an artist in everyday life means for them, in the context of their own work and ministries. It is with great pleasure that I host Dana Reynolds of Sacred Life Arts for our first installment.  I have worked with Dana as both a participant in Abbey retreats, as well as a collaborator and co-creator of Abbey programs (she helped to create the Advent 2011 retreat and the wonderful Women on the Threshold program. 

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Wisdom Council: The Illumination of Words

About a month ago I was inspired to invite several friends and long-time supporters and participants in the Abbey to join me in forming a Wisdom Council.   To my great delight, all 12 of those I invited offered me an enthusiastic yes in response.  I am looking forward to drawing on their wisdom and insight as the Abbey continues to grow and thrive, and to have others with whom to reflect on the best ways to sustainably serve this community. I asked each of them to send me three words that came to them spontaneously when they thought of the Abbey’s

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Virtual Book Tour: Spring Roundup!

Eyes of the Heart: Photography as a Christian Contemplative Practice was published in April by Ave Maria Press, and I have been so grateful for the wonderful reception! I embarked on an almost two-month long Virtual Book Tour (ah, the wonders of the internet!) and am so grateful to everyone who participated, wrote reviews, hosted guest posts, and conducted interviews.  I am really in awe at the generous response. I have compiled the whole tour below broken down by category so it is easier now to find what you might be looking for.  Several guest posts from me on the

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The winner of this week’s drawing is. . .

. . . Beckie Boger!  Beckie, email me with your snail mail address and I will get a signed copy of Eyes of the Heart: Photography as a Christian Contemplative Practice directly from me in Ireland! Such a delight, as always, to savor the poems from this past week’s Poetry Party on the wisdom of creatures.  Pour a cup of tea and linger a while.  My heart is full of gratitude for all of our Abbey poets!

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Being a Monk in the World Through Wilderness Rites of Passage (Guest Post)

I am delighted to share this guest post from Nancy Wiens about being a monk in the world through wilderness rites of passage.  Nancy and I were in the doctoral program at the Graduate Theological Union together many years ago and shared much kinship in our passions then, as well as now.  Back when I was studying Hildegard of Bingen and viriditas, Nancy was exploring discernment within the context of the natural world.  Read on for more of her insights: I am not a monk in the classical sense and thus do not live in a traditional monastery.  But very often

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Virtual Book Tour: Review at Image Journal

Image is a journal of religion and the arts.  I love the work they do, as it is in such alignment with my own passion for the monk and artist paths.  I have attended their Glen Workshop with classes in writing and the arts in the past and found it to be really inspiring and enlivening. So I am thrilled they have chose to review Eyes of the Heart: Photography as a Christian Contemplative Practice in their latest newsletter: Eyes of the Heart by Christine Valters Paintner is a little like Madeleine L’Engle’s classic Walking on Water, if L’Engle’s book had

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Virtual Book Tour: Guided Meditation and new Review at Patheos Book Club

The Patheos Book Club continues to feature Eyes of the Heart: Photography as a Christian Contemplative Practice.   New today is a visual guided meditation featured on the main page of the book club.  Click here and scroll down to where it says Seeing with the Eyes of the Heart: A Guided Meditation with Images by Christine Valters Paintner and you can scroll through a series of my photos, with quotes from the book, as well as suggestions for reflection and pondering. There is also a brand new and wonderful review by Craig Detweiler of Doc Hollywood, who is a professor

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Invitation to Poetry: The Wisdom of Creatures

Welcome to Poetry Party #69! I select an image and suggest a theme/title and invite you to respond with your own poem. Scroll down and add it in the comments section below. Feel free to take your poem in any direction and then post the image and invitation on your blog (if you have one), Facebook, or Twitter, and encourage others to come join the party!  (If you repost the photo, please make sure to include the credit link below it and link back to this post inviting others to join us). I received this photo on a recent journey out

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Virtual Book Tour: Review at Find Hope

Next stop on the Virtual Book Tour is Mary Benton’s great review at Find Hope where she describes becoming intoxicated by life: I went out after work tonight and got drunk. In the woods. With my camera. There was no food or drink involved – for it was not my body but my spirit that became intoxicated. Allow me to explain. I first “met” Christine Valters Paintner online a couple of years ago quite by accident – or so I tell myself. I was on the internet one evening, googling something or other. I no longer recall what I was searching

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